Published by Sita Kalluri on January 8, 2016
2016 is here and many things are set to change in the digital landscape. The ever evolving user preferences and the fast pace of technological transformation will bring about sweeping changes in the digital marketing industry. As marketers prepare to expect the unexpected, one thing that remains unchanged is the importance of email marketing in the online marketing space.
Email marketing this year will be largely defined by trends that already exist. It’s their significance that is expected to grow and shape the year.
Netcore has put together top insights from 4 billion emails that gives a perspective on customerâs email reading patterns and helps marketers device a robust email marketing strategy for 2016.
Download the Email Marketing Report: How India Reads Email a study of 4 billion emails/ month
Basis our report findings, here are the top 5 things that marketers must be doing in 2016 to get better results out of email marketing:
1. Target your mobile users differently
Our research shows that what works best for desktop users often does not for the mobile users. It’s not just two different devices but an altogether different mindset approach in terms of email behavior and buying patterns.
With email opens on mobile expected to touch 65% by end of 2016 (Netcore prediction), marketers must focus on getting mobile email strategy in place. Improving the email experience for mobile users includes not just going responsive but having compelling email content that keeps up with userâs short attention spans.
2. Segment based on web and device behavior
With marketers deriving value from even basic type of segmentation, we predict that 90% of marketers will start segmenting by 2016. But to get maximum results, marketers should go beyond the basic segmentation and plan campaigns based on device and web behavior based segmentation.
3. Innovate and do different things in email
Innovation shapes the future of email marketing. Marketing tactics such as triggered emails and segmentation that were considered innovative couple of years back have become the standard norm today. What starts off as good to have innovation can have the potential to become must have and impact the course of email marketing.
2016 is going to be the year of innovation in email. To stay relevant, marketers must try different (read new) things in email like adding a video in email to adjust to customers preference for shorter content formats or making even pre-header (snippet) a part of the subject line strategy.
4. Experiment and do things differently in email
Every customer is different. As is every campaign. If you keep doing the same things in email, you will continue to get the same kind of results every time. This will be the year of testing and letting data do the talking and tell what works best. Our advice to marketers is to keep experimenting different elements in email –
– Define email send times differently for mobile and desktop users,
– Try symbols in email subject lines,
– Go beyond the basic A/B split testing (like replacing image with a video)
Itâs these small experiments that will lead to big results.
5. Automate to get better at the game of 1-1 personalization
It’s time marketers did more than Hi First name to make an impact on the minds of customers. The real opportunities of personalization are in automating the marketing campaigns. By having 1-1 personalization with automation, marketers can deliver the right content to right users at the most appropriate time on the channel preferred by them so as to amplify ROI and improve customer relations.
Hope these insights will help you build a successful email marketing strategy for 2016.
View our report Email Marketing Report: How India Reads Email a study of 4 billion emails/ month:
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